THE BRIDGE AT LAST.
The group which Lord Ascot had seen through the glass doors consisted of
Charles, the coachman's son, the coachman, and Mr. Sloane. Charles and
the coachman's son had got hold of a plan of the battle of Balaclava,
from the _Illustrated London News_, and were explaining the whole thing
to the two older men, to their great delight. The four got enthusiastic
and prolonged the talk for some time; and, when it began to flag, Sloane
said he must go home, and so they came down into the bar.
Here a discussion arose about the feeding of cavalry horses, in which
all four were perfectly competent to take part. The two young men were
opposed in argument to the two elder ones, and they were having a right
pleasant chatter about the corn or hay question in the bar, when the
swing doors were pushed open, and a girl entered and looked round with
that bold, insolent expression one only sees among a certain class.
A tawdry draggled-looking girl, finely-enough dressed, but with
everything awry and dirty. Her face was still almost beautiful; but the
cheekbones were terribly prominent, and the hectic patch of red on her
cheeks, and the parched cracked lips, told of pneumonia developing into
consumption.
Such a figure had probably never appeared in that decent aristocratic
public-house, called the Groom's Arms, since it had got its licence. The
four men ceased their argument and turned to look at her; and the
coachman, a family man with daughters, said, "Poor thing!"
With a brazen, defiant look she advanced to the bar. The barmaid, a very
beautiful, quiet-looking, London-bred girl, advanced towards her,
frightened at such a wild, tawdry apparition, and asked her mechanically
what she would please to take.
"I don't want nothing to drink, miss," said the girl; "least-ways, I've
got no money; but I want to ask a question. I say, miss, you couldn't
give a poor girl one of them sandwiches, could you? You would never miss
it, you know."
The barmaid's father, the jolly landlord, eighteen stone of good humour,
was behind his daughter now. "Give her a porkpie, Jane, and a glass of
ale, my girl."
"God Almighty bless you, sir, and keep her from the dark places where
the devil lies a-waiting. I didn't come here to beg--it was only when I
see them sandwiches that it came over me--I come here to ask a question.
I know it ain't no use. But you can't see him--can't see him--can't see
him," she continued, sobbing wildly, "rattling his poor soul away, and
not do as he asked you. I didn't come to get out for a walk. I sat there
patient three days, and would have sat there till the end, but he would
have me come. And so I came; and I must get back--get back."
The landlord's daughter brought her some food, and as her eyes gleamed
with wolfish hunger, she stopped speaking. It was a strange group. She
in the centre, tearing at her food in a way terrible to see. Behind, the
calm face of the landlord, looking on her with pity and wonder; and his
pretty daughter, with her arm round his waist, and her head on his
bosom, with tears in her eyes. Our four friends stood to the right,
silent and curious--a remarkable group enough; for neither the duke's
coachman, nor Mr. Sloane, who formed the background, were exactly
ordinary-looking men; and in front of them were Charles and the
coachman's son, who had put his hand on Charles's right shoulder, and
was peering over his left at the poor girl, so that the two faces were
close together--the one handsome and pale, with the mouth hidden by a
moustache; the other, Charles's, wan and wild, with the lips parted in
eager curiosity, and the chin thrust slightly forward.
In a few minutes the girl looked round on them. "I said I'd come here to
ask a question; and I must ask it and get back. There was a gentleman's
groom used to use this house, and I want him. His name was Charles
Horton. If you, sir, or if any of these gentlemen, know where I can find
him, in God Almighty's name tell me this miserable night."
Charles was pale before, but he grew more deadly pale now; his heart
told him something was coming. His comrade, the coachman's son, held his
hand tighter still on his shoulder, and looked in his face. Sloane and
the coachman made an exclamation.
Charles said quietly, "My poor girl, I am the man you are looking for.
What, in God's name, do you want with me?" and, while he waited for her
to answer, he felt all the blood in his body going towards his heart.
"Little enough," she said. "Do you mind a little shoeblack boy as used
to stand by St. Peter's Church?"
"Do I?" said Charles, coming towards her. "Yes, I do. My poor little
lad. You don't mean to say that you know anything about him?"
"I am his sister, sir; and he is dying; and he says he won't die not
till you come. And I come off to see if I could find you. Will you come
with me and see him?"
"Will I come?" said Charles. "Let us go at once. My poor little monkey.
Dying, too!"
"Poor little man," said the coachman. "A many times, I've heard you
speak of him. Let's all go."
Mr. Sloane and his son seconded this motion.
"You mustn't come," said the girl. "There's a awful row in the court
to-night; that's the truth. He's safe enough with me; but if you come,
they'll think a mob's being raised. Now, don't talk of coming."
"You had better let me go alone," said Charles. "I feel sure that it
would not be right for more of us to follow this poor girl than she
chooses. I am ready."
And so he followed the girl out into the darkness; and, as soon as they
were outside, she turned and said to him--
"You'd best follow me from a distance. I'll tell you why; I expect the
police wants me, and you might get into trouble from being with me.
Remember, if I am took, it's Marquis Court, Little Marjoram Street, and
it's the end house, exactly opposite you as you go in. If you stands at
the archway, and sings out for Miss Ophelia Flanigan, she'll come to
you. But if the row ain't over, you wait till they're quiet. Whatever
you do, don't venture in by yourself, however quiet it may look; sing
out for her."
And so she fluttered away through the fog, and he followed, walking fast
to keep her in sight.
It was a dreadful night. The fog had lifted, and a moaning wind had
arisen, with rain from the south-west. A wild, dripping, melancholy
night, without rain enough to make one think of physical discomfort, and
without wind enough to excite one.
The shoeblacks and the crossing-sweepers were shouldering their brooms
and their boxes, and were plodding homewards. The costermongers were
letting their barrows stand in front of the public-houses, while they
went in to get something to drink, and were discussing the price of
vegetables, and being fetched out by dripping policemen, for obstructing
her Majesty's highway. The beggars were gathering their rags together,
and posting homewards; let us charitably suppose, to their bit of fish,
with guinea-fowl and sea-kale afterwards, or possibly, for it was not
late in February, to their boiled pheasant and celery sauce. Every one
was bound for shelter but the policemen. And Charles--poor, silly,
obstinate Charles, with an earl's fortune waiting for him, dressed as a
groom, pale, wan, and desperate--was following a ruined girl, more
desperate even than he, towards the bridge.
Yes; this is the darkest part of my whole story. Since his misfortunes
he had let his mind dwell a little too much on these bridges. There are
very few men without a cobweb of some sort in their heads, more or less
innocent. Charles had a cobweb in his head now. The best of men might
have a cobweb in his head after such a terrible breakdown in his
affairs as he had suffered; more especially if he had three or four
splinters of bone in his deltoid muscle, which had prevented his
sleeping for three nights. But I would sooner that any friend of mine
should at such times take to any form of folly (such even as having
fifty French clocks in the room, and discharging the butler if they did
not all strike at once, as one good officer and brave fellow did) rather
than get to thinking about bridges after dark, with the foul water
lapping and swirling about the piers. I have hinted to you about this
crotchet of poor Charles for a long time; I was forced to do so. I think
the less we say about it the better. I call you to witness that I have
not said more about it than was necessary.
At the end of Arabella Row, the girl stopped, and looked back for him.
The mews' clock was overhead, a broad orb of light in the dark sky. Ten
minutes past ten. Lord Ascot was sitting beside Lord Saltire's bed, and
Lord Saltire had rung the bell to send for Inspector Field.
She went on, and he followed her along the Mall. She walked fast, and he
had hard work to keep her in sight. He saw her plainly enough whenever
she passed a lamp. Her shadow was suddenly thrown at his feet, and then
swept in a circle to the right, till it overtook her, and then passed
her, and grew dim till she came to another lamp, and then came back to
his feet, and passed on to her again, beckoning him on to follow her,
and leading her--whither?
How many lamps were there? One, two, three, four; and then a man lying
asleep on a bench in the rain, who said, with a wild, wan face, when the
policeman roused him, and told him to go home, "My home is in the
Thames, friend; but I shall not go there to-night, or perhaps
to-morrow."
"His home was in the Thames." The Thames, the dear old happy river. The
wonder and delight of his boyhood. That was the river that slept in
crystal green depths, under the tumbled boulders fallen from the chalk
cliff, where the ivy, the oak, and the holly grew; and then went
spouting, and raging, and roaring through the weirs at Casterton, where
he and Welter used to bathe, and where he lay and watched kind Lord
Ascot spinning patiently through one summer afternoon, till he killed
the eight-pound trout at sundown.
That was the dear old Thames. But that was fifty miles up the river, and
ages ago. Now, and here, the river had got foul, and lapped about
hungrily among piles, and barges, and the buttresses of bridges. And
lower down it ran among mud banks. And there was a picture of one of
them, by dear old H. K. Browne, and you didn't see at first what it was
that lay among the sedges, because the face was reversed, and the limbs
were----
They passed in the same order through Spring Gardens into the Strand.
And then Charles found it more troublesome than ever to follow the poor
girl in her rapid walk. There were so many like her there: but she
walked faster than any of them. Before he came to the street which leads
to Waterloo Bridge, he thought he had lost her; but when he turned the
corner; and as the dank wind smote upon his face, he came upon her,
waiting for him.
And so they went on across the bridge. They walked together now. Was she
frightened, too?
When they reached the other end of the bridge, she went on again to show
the way. A long way on past the Waterloo Station, she turned to the
left. They passed out of a broad, low, noisy street, into other streets,
some quiet, some turbulent, some blazing with the gas of miserable
shops, some dark and stealthy, with only one or two figures in them,
which disappeared round corners, or got into dark archways as they
passed. Charles saw that they were getting into "Queer Street."
How that poor gaudy figure fluttered on! How it paused at each turning
to look back for him, and then fluttered on once more! What innumerable
turnings there were! How should he ever find his way back--back to the
bridge?
At last she turned into a street of greengrocers, and marine-store
keepers, in which the people were all at their house doors looking out;
all looking in one direction, and talking so earnestly to one another,
that even his top-boots escaped notice: which struck him as being
remarkable, as nearly all the way from Waterloo Bridge a majority of the
populace had criticised them, either ironically; or openly, in an
unfavourable manner. He thought they were looking at a fire, and turned
his head in the same direction; he only saw the poor girl, standing at
the mouth of a narrow entry, watching for him.
He came up to her. A little way down a dark alley was an archway, and
beyond there were lights, and a noise of a great many people shouting,
and talking, and screaming. The girl stole on, followed by Charles a few
steps, and then drew suddenly back. The whole of the alley, and the dark
archway beyond, was lined with policemen. A brisk-looking, middle-sized
man, with intensely black scanty whiskers, stepped out, and stood before
them. Charles saw at once that it was the inspector of police.
"Now then, young woman," he said sharply, "what are you bringing that
young man here for, eh?"
She was obliged to come forward. She began wringing her hands.
"Mr. Inspector," she said, "sir, I wish I may be struck dead, sir, if I
don't tell the truth. It's my poor little brother, sir. He's a dying in
number eight, sir, and he sent for this young man for to see him, sir.
Oh! don't stop us, sir. S'elp me----"
"Pish!" said the inspector; "what the devil is the use of talking this
nonsense to me? As for you, young man, you march back home double quick.
You've no business here. It's seldom we see a gentleman's servant in
such company in this part of the town."
"Pooh! pooh! my good sir," said Charles; "stuff and nonsense. Don't
assume that tone with me, if you will have the goodness. What the young
woman says is perfectly correct. If you can assist me to get to that
house at the further end of the court, where the poor boy lies dying, I
shall be obliged to you. If you can't, don't express an opinion without
being in possession of circumstances. You may detain the girl, but I am
going on. You don't know who you are talking to."
How the old Oxford insolence flashed out even at the last.
The inspector drew back and bowed. "I must do my duty, sir. Dickson!"
Dickson, in whose beat the court was, as he knew by many a sore bone in
his body, came forward. He said, "Well, sir, I won't deny that the young
woman is Bess, and perhaps she may be on the cross, and I don't go to
say that what with flimping, and with cly-faking, and such like, she
mayn't be wanted some day like her brother the Nipper was; but she is a
good young woman, and a honest young woman in her way, and what she says
this night about her brother is gospel truth."
"Flimping" is a style of theft which I have never practised, and,
consequently, of which I know nothing. "Cly-faking" is stealing
pocket-handkerchiefs. I never practised this either, never having had
sufficient courage or dexterity. But, at all events, Police-constable
Dickson's notion of "an honest young woman in her way" seems to me to be
confused and unsatisfactory in the last degree.
The inspector said to Charles, "Sir, if gentlemen disguise themselves
they must expect the police to be somewhat at fault till they open their
mouths. Allow me to say, sir, that in putting on your servant's clothes
you have done the most foolish thing you possibly could. You are on an
errand of mercy, it appears, and I will do what I can for you. There's
a doctor and a Scripture reader somewhere in the court now, so our
people say. _They_ can't get out. I don't think you have much chance of
getting in."
"By Jove!" said Charles, "do you know that you are a deuced good fellow?
I am sorry that I was rude to you, but I am in trouble, and irritated. I
hope you'll forgive me."
"Not another word, sir," said the inspector. "Come and look here, sir.
You may never see such a sight again. _Our_ people daren't go in. This,
sir, is, I believe, about the worst court in London."
"I thought," said Charles, quite forgetting his top-boots, and speaking,
"_de haut en bas_" as in old times--"I thought that your Rosemary Lane
carried off the palm as being a lively neighbourhood."
"Lord bless you," said the inspector, "nothing to this;--look here."
They advanced to the end of the arch, and looked in. It was as still as
death, but it was as light as day, for there were candles burning in
every window.
"Why," said Charles, "the court is empty. I can run across. Let me go; I
am certain I can get across."
"Don't be a lunatic, sir;" said the inspector, holding him tight; "wait
till I give you the word, unless you want six months in Guy's Hospital."
Charles soon saw the inspector was right. There were three houses on
each side of the court. The centre one on the right was a very large
one, which was approached on each side by a flight of three steps,
guarded by iron railings, which, in meeting, formed a kind of platform
or rostrum. This was Mr. Malone's house, whose wife chose, for family
reasons, to call herself Miss Ophelia Flanigan.
The court was silent and hushed, when, from the door exactly opposite to
this one, there appeared a tall and rather handsome young man, with a
great frieze coat under one arm, and a fire-shovel over his shoulder.
This was Mr. Dennis Moriarty, junior. He advanced to the arch, so close
to Charles and the inspector that they could have touched him, and then
walked down the centre of the court, dragging the coat behind him,
lifting his heels defiantly high at every step, and dexterously beating
a "chune on the bare head of um wid the fire-shovel. Hurroo!"
He had advanced half-way down the court without a soul appearing, when
suddenly the enemy poured out on him in two columns, from behind two
doorways, and he was borne back, fighting like a hero with his
fire-shovel, into one of the doors on his own side of the court.
The two columns of the enemy, headed by Mr. Phelim O'Neill, uniting,
poured into the doorway after him, and from the interior of the house
arose a hubbub, exactly as though people were fighting on the stairs.
At this point there happened one of those mistakes which so often occur
in warfare, which are disastrous at the time, and inexplicable
afterwards. Can any one explain why Lord Lucan gave that order at
Balaclava? No. Can any one explain to me why, on this occasion, Mr.
Phelim O'Neill headed the attack on the staircase in person, leaving his
rear struggling in confusion in the court, by reason of their hearing
the fun going on inside, and not being able to get at it? I think not.
Such was the case, however, and, in the midst of it, Mr. Malone, howling
like a demon, and horribly drunk, followed by thirty or forty worse than
himself, dashed out of a doorway close by, and before they had time to
form line of battle, fell upon them hammer and tongs.
I need not say that after this surprise in the rear, Mr. Phelim
O'Neill's party had very much the worst of it. In about ten minutes,
however, the two parties were standing opposite one another once more,
inactive from sheer fatigue.
At this moment Miss Ophelia Flanigan appeared from the door of No.
8--the very house that poor Charles was so anxious to get to--and slowly
and majestically advanced towards the rostrum in front of her own door,
and ascending the steps, folded her arms and looked about her.
She was an uncommonly powerful, red-faced Irishwoman; her arms were
bare, and she had them akimbo, and was scratching her elbows.
Every schoolboy knows that the lion has a claw at the end of his tail
with which he lashes himself into fury. When the experienced hunter sees
him doing that, he, so to speak, "hooks it." When Miss Flanigan's
enemies saw her scratching her elbows, they generally did the same. She
was scratching her elbows now. There was a dead silence.
One woman in that court, and one only, ever offered battle to the
terrible Miss Ophelia: that was young Mrs. Phaylim O'Nale. On the
present occasion she began slowly walking up and down in front of the
expectant hosts. While Miss Flanigan looked on in contemptuous pity,
scratching her elbows, Mrs. O'Neill opened her fire.
"Pussey, pussey!" she began, "kitty, kitty, kitty! Miaow, miaow!" (Mr.
Malone had accumulated property in the cat's meat business.) "Morraow,
ye little tabby divvle, don't come anighst her, my Kitleen Avourneen, or
yill be convarted into sassidge mate, and sowld to keep a drunken
one-eyed old rapparee, from the county Cark, as had two months for
bowling his barrer sharp round the corner of Park Lane over a ould
gineral officer, in a white hat and a green silk umbereller; and as
married a red-haired woman from the county Waterford, as calls herself
by her maiden name, and never feels up to fighting but when the licker's
in her, which it most in general is, pussey; and let me see the one of
Malone's lot or Moriarty's lot ather, for that matter, as will deny it.
Miaow!"
Miss Ophelia Flanigan blew her nose contemptuously. Some of the low
characters in the court had picked her pocket.
Mrs. O'Neill quickened her pace and raised her voice. She was beginning
again, when the poor girl who was with Charles ran into the court and
cried out, "Miss Flanigan! I have brought him; Miss Flanigan!"
In a moment the contemptuous expression faded from Miss Flanigan's face.
She came down off the steps and advanced rapidly towards where Charles
stood. As she passed Mrs. O'Neill she said, "Whist now, Biddy O'Nale, me
darlin. I ain't up to a shindy to-night. Ye know the rayson."
And Mrs. O'Neill said, "Ye're a good woman, Ophelia. Sorra a one of me
would have loosed tongue on ye this night, only I thought it might cheer
ye up a bit after yer watching. Don't take notice of me, that's a dear."
Miss Flanigan went up to Charles, and, taking him by the arm, walked
with him across the court. It was whispered rapidly that this was the
young man who had been sent for to see little Billy Wilkins, who was
dying in No. 8. Charles was as safe as if he had been in the centre of a
square of the Guards. As he went into the door, they gave him a cheer;
and, when the door closed behind him, they went on with their fighting
again.
Charles found himself in a squalid room, about which there was nothing
remarkable but its meanness and dirt. There were four people there when
he came in--a woman asleep by the bed, two gentlemen who stood aloof in
the shadow, and the poor little wan and wasted boy in the bed.
Charles went up and sat by the bed; when the boy saw him he made an
effort, rose half up, and threw his arms round his neck. Charles put his
arm round him and supported him--as strange a pair, I fancy, as you
will meet in many long days' marches.
"If you would not mind, Miss Flanigan," said the doctor, "stepping
across the court with me, I shall be deeply obliged to you. You, sir,
are going to stay a little longer."
"Yes, sir," said the other gentleman, in a harsh, unpleasant voice; "I
shall stay till the end."
"You won't have to stay very long, my dear sir," said the doctor. "Now,
Miss Flanigan, I am ready. Please to call out that the doctor is coming
through the court, and that, if any man lays a finger on him, he will
exhibit croton and other drastics to him till he wishes he was dead, and
after that, throw in quinine till the top of his head comes off.
_Allons_, my dear madam."
With this dreadful threat the doctor departed. The other gentleman, the
Scripture reader, stayed behind, and sat in a chair in the further
corner. The poor mother was sleeping heavily. The poor girl who had
brought Charles, sat down in a chair and fell asleep with her head on a
table.
The dying child was gone too far for speech. He tried two or three
times, but he only made a rattle in his throat. After a few minutes he
took his arms from round Charles's neck, and, with a look of anxiety,
felt for something by his side. When he found it he smiled, and held it
towards Charles. Well, well; it was only the ball that Charles had given
him----
Charles sat on the bed, and put his left arm round the child, so that
the little death's head might lie upon his breast. He took the little
hand in his. So they remained. How long?
I know not. He only sat there with the hot head against his heart, and
thought that a little life, so strangely dear to him, now that all
friends were gone, was fast ebbing away, and that he must get home again
that night across the bridge.
The little hand that he held in his relaxed its grasp, and the boy was
dead. He knew it, but he did not move. He sat there still with the dead
child in his arms, with a dull terror on him when he thought of his
homeward journey across the bridge.
Some one moved and came towards him. The mother and the girl were still
asleep--it was the Scripture reader. He came towards Charles, and laid
his hand upon his shoulder. And Charles turned from the dead child, and
looked up into his face--into the face of John Marston.